Turks yesterday voted in one of the most important elections in modern Turkey’s 100-year history, which could either unseat Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and halt his government’s increasingly authoritarian path or usher in a third decade of his rule.
The vote would decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed amid a deep cost of living crisis and the shape of its foreign policy, which has taken unpredictable turns.
Opinion polls give Erdogan’s main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads an alliance of six opposition parties, a slight lead, but if either of them fail to get more than 50 percent of the vote a runoff election would be held on Sunday next week
Photo: Reuters
Voters were also electing a new parliament, likely a tight race between the People’s Alliance comprising Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and others, and Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance formed of six opposition parties, including his secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), established by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Polls opened at 8am and were to close at 5pm. Under Turkish law, the reporting of any results is banned until 9pm.
In Diyarbakir, a city in the mainly Kurdish southeast which was hit by a devastating earthquake in February, some said they had voted for the opposition and others for Erdogan.
“A change is needed for the country,” 26-year-old Nuri Can said, citing Turkey’s economic crisis as the reason for voting for Kilicdaroglu. “After the election there will be an economic crisis at the door again, so I wanted change.”
Yet Hayati Arslan said that he had voted for Erdogan and the AKP.
“The country’s economic situation is not good, but I still believe that Erdogan will fix this situation. Turkey’s prestige abroad has reached a very good point with Erdogan and I want this to continue,” teh 51-year-old said.
Queues formed at polling stations in the city, with about 9,000 police officers on duty across the province.
Many in the provinces affected by the earthquake, which killed more than 50,000 people, have expressed anger over the slow initial government response, but there is little evidence that the issue would change how people vote.
Kurdish voters, who account for 15 to 20 percent of the electorate, will play a pivotal role, with the Nation Alliance unlikely to attain a parliamentary majority by itself.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is not part of the main opposition alliance, but fiercely opposes Erdogan after a crackdown on its members over the past few years.
The HDP has declared its support for Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race. It is entering the parliamentary elections under the emblem of the small Green Left Party due to a court case filed by a top prosecutor seeking to ban the HDP over links to Kurdish militants, which the party denies.
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